Antiviral Drugs Against Severe Fever With Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus Infection

Takayama-Ito, Mutsuyo; Saijo, Masayuki

Because all these mentioned drugs have inhibitory effect on SFTSV replication, combination therapies with some drugs, which have different mechanisms of action should be considered. Although, it should be considered that an antiviral drug against SFTS would be administrated to a pre-symptomatic exposed individual, the main targets of these drugs are certainly patients with suggestive symptoms of SFTS. SFTSV circulates between mammals and ticks in Southeast Asia, indicating that we cannot escape the risk of being infected with SFTSV. SFTS is classified in a disease category of viral hemorrhagic fever with high case fatality rate. Recently, cases of SFTS have been reported, wherein the patients were infected with SFTSV from cats, which might be infected with SFTSV from tick (Kida et al., 2019) . Therefore, we are hopeful that specific treatments with antiviral agents will be developed and approved for patients with SFTS as early as possible.